Thank you so very much for all your kind Oddfellow's book-birthday comments and well-wishings! This was a really exciting week.

And to say hello before the weekend comes, I wanted to share this little black bear fellow. I made him recently for our good pals the Berkleys for their soon-to-be bebe Berkley.

You can click the images to enlarge a bit!

That mustard bow-tie is one of my favorite accessories I've ever stitched to one of my sewn things. I love making toys so much - but I love making just one or two every once in a while. It stays fun for me that way!

Today is the day that Oddfellow's Orphanage lands on shelves! I'm all jittery - full of excitement (and tea and a very sweet blueberry muffin.)

It is available now for purchase via Amazon, Powell's, B & N, and most everywhere else (you can check IndieBound to find bookstores local for you.)

Working on a book like this is a highly collaborative process...your part is writing the story and making the artwork, but there are lots of other people (editors, designers, and art directors, etc) who do their part to help the book become, hopefully, the very best version of itself. In the case of Oddfellow's, everyone did such a lovely and thoughtful job on their respective parts that when the finished, bound book came to my door, I was in tears over how special the final version turned out to be.

The designer (the excellent Nicole De Las Heras) even had little golden bees set into the spine!

Little details like that make me so proud of what a lovely object this book is to hold in your hand.

Oh! And if you're curious about the the complete scene on the jacket...

My aim when working on Oddfellow's was simple - all I wanted to do was answer this question:

What's the best thing that could happen to you, if the worst thing happened to you?

I hope small people and big people alike find comfort and delight between its pages.

Oddfellow's Orphanage comes out on Tuesday, the 24th! As in, only a few days from now!I've already heard via Twitter of sightings of it in the wild. Huzzah!

Behind the scenes, I have been making the art for the official O.O. website. It won't launch in time for the book's release, but it won't be too long now! I'll post here when it's up. I'm pretty excited to share the work I've done for it. Rumor has it, there might be another freebie paper doll in the mix!

Elsewhere on the internet, you can find my Winter-survival-treat recommendations (along with some other cool ladies' favorite Winter things) on the Lawrence blog. Lawrence is the beautiful stomping grounds of one of my very favorites, the golden-haired Frankie, formerly of this nook. I would go on, but she & Lawrence really deserve their own post.

For Christmas, a thoughtful, generous friend gave me some of the most beautiful tomato-y red silk yardage, along with matching tomato-y thread, and then sweet little buttons and buckles and such in case the spirit moved.

She knew I wanted to try my hand at sewing with silk - just something simple. But I had been too gun-shy to order some or go to the shop and just pick some up and give it a whirl. I don't know why - just one of those dum dum, self-defeating, frozen-by-intimidation things. And so, in a show of true thoughtfulness, she went ahead and bundled up everything for me.

"This way," she said "if it's a total bust, the supplies were a gift and you don't have to be mad at yourself for wasting the fancy fabric."

This bundle of fabric and notions and love made me certain that thoughtfully chosen supplies, especially supplies that a sewer/baker/candlestick-maker might not buy for themselves, are one of the nicest gifts.

And I am going to make myself cut into that pretty red silk some day soon.Mark my words!

1.) The Armed Garden by David B.: a collection of legends from one of my favorite comics artists. Epileptic, the book he is probably best known for, is one of the most memorable and special graphic novels I've ever read, and fascinatingly entwines dreams and memoir.

2.) The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: as you might expect from Taschen, this is a large, beautifully presented anthology of Grimm stories which culls images from a startling variety of illustrators. I didn't know this book existed 'til it was given to me, and it was such a nice surprise! I was really pleased with how thoughtfully it is edited, and especially with the range of visual styles on parade in this lovely purple book.

3.) Framed Butterflies from Bug Under Glass: I have an informal collection of framed moths and butterflies, and I was so happy to acquire a few new sturdily framed specimens (including my favorite winged beauty of them all!) from this excellent Etsy shop. I love the ones mounted on patterned paper, but the standard presentation is quite elegant itself.

4.) The Fujifilm Instax 210: I've wanted an instant camera every since I laid eyes on my Aunt's Poloroid when I was just a button, so receiving this wide-format version of the Instax made me bounce off the walls wildly with excitement! I'm still getting to know it, and experimenting with the film, but it is pure magic.

5.) Mail Order Mysteries: If Josiah is reading a comic from the early 80's or before, my favorite thing to do is to peer over his shoulder at all the amazing ads, so this book could not be more fascinating to me. The extremely funny commentary about the real items received, which are contrasted with the original (very compelling) ads, couldn't be better.

6.) The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of her Own Making: I'm only ankle-deep in this story, but I can report that Ms.Valente's sparkling knack for the weaving of words makes this book feel absolutely worthy of the bittersweet homage it pays to Alice, Oz, etc. It is at once markedly post-modern (the heroine is constantly reminding herself of what other children in books have done when whisked away to magical places) but it is also sincere, enchanting and devil-may-care enough to never feel too awfully much like a hollow metafictional commentary on fantastical stories for children. I like it very much!

Why, hello & how do you do?Happy New Year, though I know I'm a week late. I needed another week of keeping a distance from internet-life, I think. I have posts I want to compose and things I want to share, but today, just to stop in and say hello, is a sleepy photo of our living room in the mild glow of the golden afternoon.

I perched some framed bits up on the big window ledge up there. I don't know why that took me so long. Precarious perching is one of my best talents.

I've been spending a lot of time in that room lately, being useless, being useful, lining up the ephemeral plans for 2012 in my mind. Stories that need telling. Pictures of imaginary people and fairy tales and accordians and whoknowswhat that need painting. Work for some of these things is underway, the rest will get underway all in good time.

Here's hoping your year is off to a nice start! I will return with more dispatches soon.